Chapter 24 Locked Out
Chapter twenty-four
Locked Out
“God is the supreme humorist, and it is his divine sense of humor that we men call fate.” – Evan Esar
As Hailey grabbed her tiny towel, soap, and shampoo (she didn’t have any fresh clothes to change into), Giselle brushed past her and glided out the door without uttering a word or even glancing in her direction.
At least she’s a quiet snob, Hailey thought, as she stepped across the hall and claimed the corner shower.
The stall was divided into two parts with a partition separating the actual shower from the changing section. Hailey undressed and hung her towel on the hook nearest the shower. Grabbing her soap, she turned on the water and let a high-pressure blast of warmth envelope her.
She showered fast, but when she opened the shower door and reached for her tiny towel all she felt was an empty hook.
Her clothes were missing, too.
The steam from her shower lifted quickly, and Hailey shivered as droplets of water fell from the ends of her hair, trickling down her back.
Panic-stricken, she peeked out the stall door. The whole room was empty. No sign of students or towels or clothes or shoes or anything she could use to cover herself. It took at least a minute of shivering inside the stall to work up enough courage to venture out.
Covered in goose bumps, she wondered if she should just throw an arm over her boobs and make a run for her room.
She poked her head into the girls' hallway. It was empty, and her room was only a couple of steps away. Hugging one arm across her chest, she bolted across the hall and slammed against her door.
“Giselle,” she called as she jiggled the handle. “Unlock the door!”
She twisted the knob again, but it didn’t budge.
Crap.
When the door on the ground floor screeched open, Hailey pinged back to the shower room, only to find that door locked too.
Feet, lots of feet were trudging into Eureka, and the laundry room door wouldn’t budge either.
As the hollow chatter of at least five students entered the stairwell, Hailey felt a panic brewing and was running out of private time.
Swimming across the ceiling and wearing Hailey’s Bear Towne sweats, a wispy, Picasso-faced female poltergeist pointed and laughed.
“Oh, you little brat,” Hailey sputtered.
Dripping and shivering, she made a mad, naked dash for Fin’s door and stood pressed against it, knocking frantically. He’d have a towel and the master key that would open her room.
“Fin!” Hailey hissed against a vibrating door.
Guitar music, so loud it reverberated in her chest, answered.
She looked over her shoulder and tried beating his door with an open palm.
“Fin!” she begged. “Open the door!”
More students were coming upstairs, and they were getting closer.
She pounded on the door with her fist.
“Fin!”
The music stopped abruptly.
The latch clicked, and the door flung open just as a gaggle of students reached the third floor.
Hailey fell into Fin’s room, head-first, buck-naked, and soaking wet. Trying to cover her body the best she could with her tiny hands, she scooted out of the doorway and pressed herself against the inside wall.
“Well, hello, Hailey,” Fin announced in a smooth voice as he pushed the door shut.
“Avert your eyes!”
Stifling a laugh, he turned around. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your nakedness?”
“A poltergeist. Little brat took my towel, locked me out of my room, and then it locked me out of the shower—could I borrow a towel, please?”
He reached one off of the top of his dresser, balled it up, and flung it under his arm without looking.
“Thanks,” she said, wrapping it around herself. “May I please borrow a shirt?”
He picked up his closest shirt and threw it. It was some sort of hockey jersey, and it had his name on it.
She pulled it over her head and stuck her arms through the sleeves. The thing was huge on her, coming down to her knees like a dress. And it was itchy.
Squirming inside his shirt, she cracked his door open. “How long do you think they’ll be out there?” she asked, closing it again.
“All night?” he guessed in a way-too-hopeful voice.
“I can’t go out there like this! They’ll think I was naked in here.” She gave him a condemning glance over her shoulder. “And from what I’ve gathered, a lot of naked girls come in your room, Fin.”
He swallowed a laugh in his throat.
“What?” Hailey insisted. “Oh,” she said, disapproving of him. Of course his mind went straight to the gutter. “You’re a juvenile.”
Plopping on his recliner, he put his feet up.
“You’re welcome to stay here,” he said, smiling widely with his hands laced behind his head.
“Right,” she muttered, her eyes desperately searching for another way out.
His room was huge. One of the perks of being the RA was that he lived in a suite with a private bathroom.
In addition to the recliner (Fin looked extremely satisfied sitting there), there was a couch facing a giant TV.
In the corner sat his bed, neatly made with a fluffy blanket on top.
He had a big desk and a book shelf against the wall next to his bathroom.
Another door, a closet maybe, stood closed beside the bathroom.
Everything was neat, clean, and orderly.
Surprisingly, he was a good housekeeper.
“I didn’t know you played,” she said, pointing at the Fender next to his bed.
“Yeah,” he said, “have for many, many, many years.” He was smirking and stifling yet another laugh, but at least he wasn’t looking her up and down.
She hadn’t shaved her legs in months and was desperately embarrassed he’d notice.
Hailey tugged the hockey shirt down as far as she could get it, but it wasn’t far enough to cover her tarantula legs.
“Hand me your pants,” she said, nodding to a stack of laundry on top of his dresser.
Jumping up, Fin popped the button on his jeans.
“Don’t be a jerk!”
“Relax, woman,” he said, holding his hands up, and then he lobbed a pair of sweats at her. “I was kidding.”
Hailey caught the giant sweats with one hand and pulled at the collar of the jersey with the other. It was really itchy. And the emblem was a bear—the university’s team, maybe?
“Why do you have this?” she asked.
“It’s my hockey jersey.”
“You play hockey?”
“A little.” He looked at her as if she should already know all this.
“You any good?”
“I can hold my own,” he said, sounding offended.
“You worked in the pub all spring,” Hailey brought up as she handed him back his towel. “Will they let you play this season?”
“Uh…yeah.”
“You must be pretty good.”
“I’m phenomenal.”
“And humble,” Hailey pointed out.
Fin poked his tongue into his cheek, and Hailey peeked out the door again.
Without warning, Fin grabbed the door from her grip, threw it open, and pushed her into the hallway using both hands.
She grabbed at the sweatpants, which were way too big to stay up without help and fell off her hips as she shuffled unwillingly into a gaggle of her classmates.
Fin lowered his chin and pointed at Hailey. “When you’re all done cuddling with my jersey,” he said loud enough for the whole floor to hear, “you can bring it back.” Then he slammed his door.
Hailey looked around, mortified…and still locked out of her room.
Curling up on the floor against her door, she hoped her roommate would reappear before morning. Class started at 0800, and it wasn’t until ten minutes before the hour that she heard footsteps approach.
She didn’t look up as she sat with her knees pulled to her chest, head resting on them, until the feet stopped right in front of her.
And it wasn’t Giselle. It was Fin. With Hailey sitting directly under him, he pulled a skeleton key from his pocket, shoved it in the lock, and pushed open the door. He looked down at her without backing up, and Hailey had to wrench her neck to see him.
“I’ll have my jersey back now,” he said.
She scooted away from him on her bum and stood slowly, unbelievably stiff after spending a very cold, very itchy night crunched up on the hard wooden floor. Hobbling into her room and without uttering a word, she closed the door in his face.
He could wait for his impossibly itchy jersey.
Giselle’s bed and the ceiling above it lay empty, but Tomas greeted her by urgently tapping the back of his wrist.
“I know, I know,” said Hailey as she frantically searched her room. “Where are my books?” Not only were her books missing, but her backpack was gone too, along with her boots.
Tomas shrugged. He flew out of the mirror and wrestled her crazy hair into a braid while she pulled on her socks. He’d only just finished pinning back a stray frizzy with a sparkly barrette when she dashed out the door in stocking feet, using both hands to hold up Fin’s sweatpants.
Bounding down the stairs three at a time, she slapped the switch in the tunnels and sprinted across the rough-cut stone floor toward Olde Maine, arriving only a minute or two late and just as Professor Woodfork was writing “Envoy History” on the blackboard.
Holding onto her gigantic pants and breathing way too loudly to sneak into the auditorium unnoticed, she snapped her mouth shut and went to all-nasal huffing as she nudged open the auditorium door.
The latch was silent. The hinges, however, unleashed a screech that Uncle Pix probably heard all the way in Pittsburgh.
Everyone, human and human-looking non-human alike, turned to see who dared come late to the first class of the semester.
Slinking inside with her head ducked, Hailey put her butt into the first open seat in her path, shamefaced and still panting. It wasn’t until she sat down that she realized she’d stepped on a wasp, or at least that’s what it felt like.